Barometer

Hobs choice Oxford City Council has banned the installation of gas hobs in new homes from 2025. What is best: gas or electric? – According to Which? running a gas cooker costs £23 a year, compared with £61 for an electric cooker. Boiling a large pot of water takes an average of 9.69 minutes on

Post-PM posts David Cameron will not be the first former prime minister to serve as foreign secretary (which remarkably is only his second ministerial post). – Sir Alec Douglas-Home served as Edward Heath’s foreign secretary between 1970 and 1974. The difference in his case is that he had renounced a peerage when he became prime

I want to be alone An animal described as ‘Britain’s loneliest sheep’ was ‘rescued’ from the bottom of a cliff in Easter Ross where it had been living for the past two years, presumably after clambering down the steep coastal slope and finding it impossible to climb back up.   Some other lonely life forms: –

Sporting danger An ice hockey player died in Sheffield after his throat was cut by an opponent’s skate blade. How dangerous is ice hockey? – There were 7,668 visits to US emergency rooms as a result of ice hockey-related head injuries in 2018. This compares with 51,892 for American football, 24,516 for baseball, 38,898 for

Side hustles David Solomon, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said he would stop DJing in clubs, following criticism from the bank’s board. For years he had performed under the alias D-Sol, playing electronic dance music. Some other unlikely side hustles: – In 2017 King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands revealed that for the past 21 years

Gaza in history Gaza is no stranger to territorial conflict. Originally settled around 3000 bc as a fortress and trading post between Egypt and Canaan, the city of Gaza declined and was rebuilt several times during the Bronze Age. After serving as an administrative centre in ancient Egypt, it became one of five ports used

Party season Unusually, the Conservatives are holding their party conference before the Labour party. It has become tradition that the Lib Dems hold theirs one week, Labour the next and the Conservatives the week after that, with the latter concluding in the first week of October. The tradition held even in 2020 when conferences moved

Within limits Do 20mph speed limits save lives? – A 2018 report by Atkins/AECOM/UCL found that 51% of motorists conformed to the new limit (47% in residential areas and 65% in city centres). – When a 20mph zone replaced a 30mph one the median speed fell by 0.7mph in residential areas and 0.9mph in city

Get out of jail There were 8 prison escapes in the year to March. All were recaptured within a month. – Some 63 prisoners absconded, which is when a prisoner escapes without having to overcome a physical barrier: this is only possible in open prisons. – A total of 71 had their escape made for

Puffed up Just 12.9% of Britons smoke cigarettes, figures out this week showed – the lowest on record. How does the UK compare? – The highest smoking rate is in Nauru (48.5%), the lowest is in Ghana (3.5%). – 24.5% of people in France are daily smokers compared with 11.5% in the US. – In

Wagnerian exile Would Richard Wagner have approved of the Wagner Group? While he is believed to have harboured anti-Semitic views and his music later became an inspiration for Adolf Hitler, the young Wagner was a left-wing activist. In 1849, in spite of serving with the Saxon court in Dresden, he joined an uprising against Prussian

Bank on it Does the August bank holiday actually celebrate anything? – When bank holidays were first established in 1871, the August bank holiday fell at the beginning of the month, allegedly because it was an important week for cricket in Yorkshire, the home county of MP Sir John Lubbock, who introduced the parliamentary act

The bare platform A 112-space car park built to serve the railway station in the Cambridgeshire village of Manea was used by just three cars in its first week. — The station, formerly a ghost station with one train a week, has been revived but even so is only served by two trains every hour. —

Scout’s honour Thousands of teenagers were evacuated from the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea as flooding, a heatwave and then the threat of a typhoon affected the event. What exactly is a ‘jamboree’? – Lord Baden-Powell adopted the word for the first gathering of scouts at Kensington Olympia in 1920. But the word itself

Union booze Several universities have renamed freshers’ week ‘welcome week’ in an attempt to dissociate it from heavy drinking. How much do students drink? – A survey last year by the group Students Organising for Sustainability found that 81% regard drinking and getting drunk as part of university culture. – 53% reported drinking more than

Boss pay Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, complained that FTSE 100 bosses aren’t paid enough, and suggested that the gap between UK bosses and US bosses needs to be closed if the London market is to prosper. How much are FTSE 100 bosses paid? – The median earnings in 2021 for

Swing when you’re winning What are the biggest UK by-election swings? — The 1983 Bermondsey by-election saw a 11,756 Labour majority turned into a 9,319 majority for the Liberal party – a result widely attributed to the Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell, coming out as gay during the campaign. The Labour party under Michael Foot was

Mx Universe A transgender woman was named ‘Miss Netherlands’, and will now compete in the Miss Universe contest. British TV viewers might be surprised to learn there are still such things as beauty pageants, given they disappeared from the main TV channels in the 1980s. They might be even more surprised to learn who was

Of no account  Nigel Farage claimed that his bank has told him it will be closing his accounts, without giving him a reason, although he suspects it is because of his political views. Is it possible to live without a bank account? – According to the Financial Conduct Authority, there are 1.3 million adults in